The term "geek" originally referred to the carnival performers whose act consisted of biting the heads off chickens and eating glass. Over time it came to be applied to anyone who got paid to do work considered odd or bizarre by mainstream society.

The term now enjoys a special status within the technical community, particularly among particularly knowledgable computer programmers. To identify oneself as a "geek" indicates a recognition that most people still consider programming computers to be a bizarre act, along with a certain fierce satisfaction in being very good at their inglorious profession.

That most software geeks now easily earn twice as much as the average laborer just sweetens their defiant embrace of the term.

Note: Unlike the word "nerd," which is always pejorative, "geek" often carries a positive connotation when used by one of the group. The use of the term by outsiders is considered insulting.

One of four titles used to classify someone based on their technical and social skills. The other three titles are nerd, dork, and normie. The difference between the four titles can be easily shown in table form:

Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.

Nerd: A socially awkward person who has learned technical skills due to the spare time they enjoy from being generally neglected. Their technical knowledge then leads normies to neglect them even further, leading to more development of their technical skills, more neglection, etc. This vicious cycle drives them even more into social oblivion.

Dork: A person who, although also socially awkward, doesn't have the intelligence to fill the void with technical pursuits, like a nerd, and is forced to do mindless activities. Almost always alone. Usually with an XBox. Like playing Halo. All day. Every day. Not even understanding how the Xbox is making the pretty pictures on the screen. Very sad.

If you met me at a party, you would have no idea that I enjoy finite element analysis-based inviscid flow modelling using computational fluid dynamics. That's because I'm a geek.

It doesn't seem to refer to 'computer programmers' as much as it once did when computers weren't so damn cool handy. Geeks are pretty much people who have a real understanding for a certain topic eg Films, music, cars. It's usualy that they are totaly obsessed about the topic, or it's just something they think alot on.

sure, you kick their ass and steal their lunch money and pick on them now, but you wont be laughing when drives up the garage and you have to fix his porsche or ur boss will fire you, and then you realize that the guy in the porsche with a smoking hot wife is the guy you picked on when you were in high school, and you attempt to avoid eye contact but the guy says "hey dont i know you from high school?" and then you say yea and he laughs and drives off, then you go back to your mobile home and complain to your 230 pound wife what happened at work, and who knows, that 230 pound wife could have just have been the slutty hot cheerleader chick you used to date back in the good ol days, u never know....

A geek is a person who is socially excluded from a general population. Unlike nerds, geeks do not necessarily have to be smart. They often create groups among themselves, and generally have these similar characterizations:
-lack of participation in physical activities, such as sports
-an interest in computer
-a crude sense of humor radically different from common society
-a negative attitude toward common society.

Bill Gates was probably a geek in high school, and probably still is today.